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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”